Comments

nightgoddess73

"Momma does the proposing and Daddy does the disposing. If Dads arent there to enforce the law, society will."

Major, I have to disagree. I am a single mother with 2 teenage boys. Very well-behaved teenage boys. Well-behaved enough that their teachers have remarked on MANY occasions that other kids should take lessons from mine. How did this happen without a dad? Because I have instilled the fear of god in them. Not from a religious perspective, but from a common sense perspective. Butt whippings hurt and they WILL get one if they act like fools.

The result? I haven't had to spank either of them in years because they learned early on what it means to be respectful and accountable for their actions. And all of this without a dad around.....

Bullhead

Unfortunately our society has leaned heavily toward an attitude of an entertainment and entitlement society, which doesn't accept responsibility for its actions. The increasing role of public education from cradle through college doesn't help that mentality or responsibility.

deadhead

I firmly believe that indeed; parents ARE responsible for teaching their children. Discipline, respect and other tangible societal issues are not to be ceded to school teachers and such however. Paddleing and the "ruler" was never a good substitute for parental influence. That said. Parents should realize that teachers can teach your child absolutely NOTHING,NADA! They can AND DO set the curriculum however. Once your son or daughter comes home with schoolwork (completed or not) it is the parents' responsibility to go over it....

deadhead

... going over the work every day instills the sense of responsibility to both child and adult. It is the adult who either allows the child to watch television, play video games or play outside without first doing the schoolwork required. It is the adult, who in most cases sadly, does not produce a book for the child to read instead of allowing a developing mind to wander aimlessly and without structure. My children never had a television in their room nor a video game system to play. (boy did their mom and I hear about that endlessly) We gave them a book and only after homework was done could they play outside or read the new book. It was a battle to keep them "happy" compared to their friends who had video games and televisions...

deadhead

... and their own computors etc.. But in the end they both ended up with full ACADEMIC scholarships to the college of their choice. Education is the key to the rhealm of our society. But when babies who have not finished highschool are having babies (quite the norm in this part of the world) is it any wonder why our children are becomming the least educated on the planet? Becomming lemmings for the "masters of indusry," and the politicians who serve only their corporate masters? * Take the television out of the bedroom, throw away the video games and find a way to control the personal computor/tablet/phone and perhaps our youth will again become the envy of the world and not the patsies of it.

KalvaChomer

Ahhhh deadhead ! You were really making sense there for a while. I was just about to reevaluate my opinion of you when you started with that "masters of industry" nonsense. I hope you didn't teach that crap to your kids. The biggest problem I had with raising two kids was "correcting" that kind of New Left claptrap that they picked up in school, from the media and from the culture in general.

callie

Applause to our teachers. They care more than you think they do about the kids. Many now are facing a violent atmosphere, rather than a learning one. One city school in particular needs to clean up their act quickly. Hire a stable principal with strict guidelines for the students, and a liberal heart for allowing teachers to teach.

deadhead

Since the 1980's and ronny raygun's man (bill bennett) decided to gut the department of education in an attempt to dumb down our society to keep it compliant and without cognative thought (easier to rule) we have seen a decline in our kids' education standards. I mean; now we allow the nuts in Texas write the history books (ommitting the fact that slavery was the reall issue at question during the civil war) and re-writing science books (saying man walked with dinosaurs) elevating (the oxymoron) intelligent design to an equal footing with evolution. It is no wonder our kids are woefully prepared to enter a competitive world market place since we put greater emphisis on the dreams of being an NFL or Rock star over being a great engineer or scientist...

deadhead

... teachers were always taken aback when I would first meet them and say to them without hesitation... "I do not expect you to teach my child anything.... You will provide me with the curriculum and I will ensure my child will learn it... If there is anything YOU need, please let me know..." Usually the teacher would stand there for a moment digesting what I had just said. I always got a thank you and I forged great relationships with each one, closely going over everything presented to my kids for their consumption... It worked out well and served my kids greatly ** Klava they think for themselves.. I made sure they learned how to think in a cognative matter to understand what is going on in the world

Bullhead

If it is not the job of the teacher to teach, then why do we pay so many of them to pick out curriculum? And why don't we call just them curriculum providers?

You have a strange standard: You say it is just their job to provide you with a curriculum so that you can teach your child. Why can't you pick out a curriculum? And, why do you then complain about the curriculum that these "educational experts" pick out?

If you don't like Texas' curriculum providers, then don't live there. I am not a fan of North Korea's curriculum providers, so I don't live there. Nor am I a fan of Massachusetts' curriculum providers, so I don't live there. Easy enough...

KalvaChomer

Now that's the deadhead I recognize. I assume all that common sense parenting talk in your first comment just got there through some error. Thanks for clearing up the confusion. Now my opinion of you and your thinking is confirmed.

deadhead

Bull/klava/major - you are all missing my point. First and foremost I am of the opinion that it is parents who do all the best teaching to children and should take the most active role they can in delivering the education standards set by reasonable academics. It was my responsibility to educate my children and I take/took that very seriously and wish other parents would do so and not use the public school system as a baby sitting service. When I say "I am the teacher" it is in the context of hours and hours at the table with my kids engaging them with questions about what they learned that day, reviewing homework and helping "grading" their written work.(what I would say was a B- always seemed to come back from the teacher an A)

deadhead

your comments about the Texas board of education setting the standard and that I should go to Texas reveal your lack of knowledge of the subject. In fact, in this country, Texas has the largest public school system in the country and when it chooses books text books to be used in their curriculum it becomes the standard for the rest of the country because by sheer size and numbers it reduces the cost of all the books to be purchased so other states sign onto the same books in order to further reduce the costs.. (capitalisim) Fair enough (why have 50 different books for the same subject matter) but the choices being made in Austin are now no longer congruent with reality in the rest of the country.

deadhead

Parents should NOT be the people to choose the curriculum because it would create to much closed loop thinking. People need to be exposed to all kinds of ideas (the main reason we have freedom of the press written into the constitution) and different points of view in order to form their own. I believe home schooling is wrong (but I commend the parents to do it and are taking responsibility to educate their kids) because of the isolation of the kids and the isolation of the ideas presented to the student. Math is the language for which there is no words to the science we seek to explain. It is the language of thought. Cutting spending on public education severely dampens our place in the world.

helloooo

What is education? According to Webster's 1828, "The bringing up, as of a child, instruction; formation of manners. Education comprehends all that series of instruction and discipline which is intended to enlighten the understanding, correct the temper, and form the manners and habits of youth, and fit them for usefulness in their future stations."

The ultimate goal of education is to replicate everything that is good in you as a parent into your child and to give them the tools to be successful in life.

We have allowed Gov't to get involved and teach children subjects contrary to moral values, acceptance of sodomite lifestyles, no right to self-defense, inclusion at all costs, promiscuous living through sex ed, free ******s and inappropriate sexual behavior allowed in children, teaching that founders were generally racist immoral people we should be ashamed of, society is more important than the individual or family etc...

helloooo

It is the God given right/duty of the parents to train up (educate) their child and not that of gov't. Parents have either believed a lie that they both must work and defer childbearing duties to the gov't or they are selfish wanting their own careers in order to maintain a standard of living above that which they need to be good parents.

A family can make it on one income but you must work at it. Don't defer your job as parent to the gov't or else they will take it from everyone. A right not exercised is a right lost.

Jean1H

As a teacher I find it amusing at times to see the comments written about us. Allow me to relate an event that happened to me one evening in a book store. I was looking for a book of poetry by Gwendlyn Brooks. There was an elderly gentleman there and we began talking about 'teachers'. He told me that it is the 'teachers' job to teach manners and discipline to my students. I objected saying that is the parents role not the teachers. He agreed with me but said the parents were not doing their job so now 'teachers' needed to do that. I asked him when will we have time to teach our respective curriculum if we first have to teach multiculturalism, allow time for 'specials' over cores, discipline in the class, and then teach a subject? Now you want us to teach them manners and proper respect on top of the other extraneous junk we must cover? He just said 'yes'. I just want to say thank you to you here who really understand that we teachers want very much to teach our students to think